Monday, June 22, 2015

closing in, I hope that you make it

It's easy for me to feel like the walls are closing in. It's easy for me to get so invested in my work, so obsessed with my own tangled web of thought, so wound up, that the lump in my chest seems like it'll never go away. And I don't always know how to break out of it. Sometimes I just wait & things get easier. Sometimes I throw myself into reading a new novel or go for a run & sometimes my Ryan takes me backpacking. Well, last week he took me backpacking for the first time.

He's been going backpacking since he was a kid & I've always felt like I haven't had the balls to do it myself. But this year, for whatever reason, I womaned up & agreed to go. It was one of the most physically challenging things I have ever done (Ryan said it was one of the most difficult hikes he had ever done too so I guess I'm not a pansy ;)) but also one of the most gratifying. We scaled Ralston Peak the first day & it was absolutely incredible. We stood on the highest peak in sight & could see Lake Tahoe in front of us & smaller lakes on either side of the mountain & Nevada somewhere out there in the distance. It was breathtaking. My legs ached & I had a 25 lb. pack on my back & it was one of the coolest things I've ever done. (**correction: Ry read this post & said it was closer to 30 lbs. insert bicep emoji here)

Sometimes I feel like my walls are closing in. I know that is just a part of my personality & emotional bend that I will always feel. I can get way too narcissistic & analytical & can overthink life to the nth degree. But I got really lucky. Really lucky. The man I live my life alongside reminds me what beautiful simplicity looks like, the beauty in difference, the bigness of the world around me, & reminds me when I need to hear it most, "Sweetie, let it be."

I am thankful. That I get to live my life beside someone who is so wonderfully different than me, who pushes those walls out when I can't seem to figure out how to do it myself.